Console access

Skyline console access lets you log in through the VM's virtual display from the dashboard. Use it when you need interactive access without associating a floating IP or exposing SSH through mustelinet SSH.

Console or SSH

Use one of these paths depending on what you need:

The console password is a password inside the VM's operating system. It is not your OpenStack, Skyline, GitHub, or mustelinet SSO password.

Create a VM for console login

This is the normal path for a new VM. Set the password during creation, then use that password from the console after the guest has booted.

1. Create a new VM from a supported general-purpose server or cloud image.
2. In System Config, set Login Type to Password.
3. Set Login Name to the default user for the image, such as ubuntu for Ubuntu.
4. Enter a strong Login Password and confirm it.
5. Create the VM.
6. Wait until the VM is ACTIVE and has finished booting.
7. In Skyline, open Compute, then Instances.
8. Open the instance actions menu and choose Console.
9. Log in with the image username and the password you set during creation.

For interactive console login, prefer normal server or cloud images. Do not treat Trove, managed Kubernetes, appliance, or cluster-node images as normal interactive-login images unless your project has a specific reason.

Default console usernames

Fedora CoreOS is listed for recognition, but it is not the recommended default image family for a normal interactive console-login VM.

For day-to-day shell work, use mustelinet SSH after exposing the VM through the Pomerium-backed SSH route.

Change the password after creation

Some Skyline deployments expose an instance action named Set Password or Change Password. Use it when you need to reset or rotate the local VM password after the VM exists.

This is different from choosing Login Type Password during VM creation. Creation-time password setup is the preferred path for new console-login VMs; Set Password or Change Password is the later reset path.

This action depends on guest support:

• The VM must be active.
• The image must have QEMU Guest Agent support enabled when the VM is created.
• qemu-guest-agent must be installed and running inside the guest.
• VMs created before QEMU Guest Agent metadata was enabled may not have the required guest-agent channel.

If the VM was created before guest-agent support was enabled, the safest tenant-facing recovery path is to rebuild or recreate the instance from a supported image, then set the password again. Do not assume Skyline can recover access to every existing VM.

Troubleshooting

If console login says Login incorrect:

• Confirm you used the correct image username.
• Confirm the VM was created with Login Type Password, or that a later Set Password or Change Password action completed successfully.
• Wait a minute after boot and try again.
• If you changed the password after creation, wait briefly and retry the Set Password or Change Password action.
• Reboot the VM and try the console login again.

If Set Password or Change Password fails:

• The image may not have qemu-guest-agent installed or running.
• The VM may have been created before guest-agent metadata was enabled.
• Rebuild or recreate the VM from a supported image.

For an inaccessible VM without guest-agent support, rescue or rebuild remains the recovery path.

Official reference

• Skyline Console: Launch and manage instances
• OpenStack Compute API: Server consoles and passwords
• OpenStack image properties: QEMU Guest Agent